Automation and the use of multiple accounts policy

[kristamorgs]

Hi team,

I work with the Spectrum news teams and they have been concerned over a recent announcement (https://blog.twitter.com/developer/en_us/topics/tips/2018/automation-and-the-use-of-multiple-accounts.html) regarding the new automation rules and how it affects duplicate content.

They have several markets in North Carolina, Texas and Florida that are hyperlocal and frequently share identical state-level content. This new policy would place them under violation, with exception of breaking news/emergency/PSA situations as seen in the clause below. Would regular local news be covered by public service announcement clause?

Curious how you recommend the news teams proceed here so they don’t get their handles in trouble.

Any insight would be apprecaited!

[dha]

Hi there -

Regular local news wouldn’t be given an exception here. For the use case you described, and as an alternative to posting identical content, you can Retweet content from one account from the other accounts you wish to share that post from. This should only be done from a small number of distinct accounts that you directly control.

Please note that this forum is here to assist developers building integrations with questions about the rules around the developer platform, and recommend that you work with the Twitter Support team via help.twitter.com if you have further questions about what is or is not allowed as part of regular usage of the platform.

[kristamorgs]

Hi @dha,

HUGE help. Really appreciate your follow up! Ads Policy Ops redirected me to this forum when I initially reached out.

My client had another quick follow up question:

“In the case that we didn’t want to retweet and wanted the pages to share original content, how different must each tweet be? Would swapping out 2-3 words be enough? There’s only so many ways you can creatively relay the same headline.”

Let me know if I should push back on ops and send this question their way instead.

Thank you!

Krista

[101domain]

Hi from what I understand, the use of automation from a single account is still acceptable. For example, using a program like Zapier to automate a thank you message to new followers. Is this correct?

The use of any form of automation (including scheduling) to post identical or substantially similar content, or to perform actions such as Likes or Retweets, across many accounts that have authorized your app (whether or not you created or directly control those accounts) is not permitted.

Thank you in advance.

[dha]

Any automation on a single account is still bound by the Automation Rules. As a next step we suggest you review the rules here - https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-automation

[dha]